


Children of the End

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Hope Themes, Not Child Friendly, POV Second Person, Small Children in the Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 09:06:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4781702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a long, long time for you. But you knew what it was like before the Curse came, and they didn't know anything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children of the End

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse for this I just opened up pages and then word vomit, enjoy

They were an odd bunch, all shapes and sizes and colors, but all far too young to be where they were. They came in a dented car with a lanky twelve-year-old in the driver’s seat, all scraped-up knees and dirt-streaked faces and bright eyes that hadn’t given up yet.  
  
Fourteen kids that had gone through hell, still clinging to a distant hope and to each other. It was darned near enough to make your old, lonely ass tear up.  
  
The one that seemed to be their leader, a girl with big blue eyes and a baseball bat with nails pounded into it hanging from a holster on her back, hadn’t bothered to introduce herself. Their car had skidded to a stop on the gravely, crumbling freeway, and she’d climbed out with her shoelaces skittering and a plaid overshirt tied around her waist.  
  
 _A picture,_ she’d requested in a hoarse voice, offering you a cracked smartphone. Then she’d cleared her throat and continued. _If you’d be kind enough,_ was how she’d phrased it, _and if you aren’t too busy, I’d like a picture with my friends._  
  
You couldn’t very well say no. You nodded wordlessly, took the phone (God, you hadn’t seen a working smartphone in years), and her face lit up like the Fourth of July and Halloween and Christmas and her birthday all rolled up into one. It made you feel a little sad that something as little as a picture would make her so happy— but clearly, a world where the dead walked the earth and poison seeped through the very veins of what little remained was all she knew.  
  
The doors of the car opened and a gaggle of fourteen kids spilled out, and you watched as they organized themselves in front of the jalopy they’d arrived in— taller ones in the back, smaller in the front— telling each other _don’t step on my hand, stupid,_ and _keep that hammer away from my head,_ and _Cynthia, we don’t have enough room for your hero pose!_ There were sheepish grins and light shoves and jabs and pokes, childish cackles from a pair of twins that couldn’t be more than six, a short sigh from one of the taller boys that told you he must’ve been the one taking care of them all. It felt almost normal, seeing children act like children in the midst of a world that turned normalcy on its head.  
  
You took a picture by accident when trying to remember how these things worked. No one was quite in position yet, shfiting or blinking or something of the sort, but the second time you clicked the button, after the girl with blue eyes was in the back center and told everyone to smile (and everyone did), it worked out.  
  
The children dispersed after that, and you gave the girl the phone back. You apologized for the accidental one, and she shrugged it off more easily than you would have thought normal for a girl her age. You noticed the details on her then as she looked over the pictures— the tiara stitched gold into the dirty beanie on her head, the scuffed guards on her knees, the bruise on the bridge of her nose, the worn-out crest on her too-big shirt that looked vaguely familiar.  
  
You asked, as smalltalk made by travelers nowadays, were she was headed. And she looked at you with those big blue eyes, eyes you could tell had already seen more than was fair for her age (but she kept smiling for her friends and you wondered how one child could be that strong) and tucked the phone back into her pocket. And she told you then, she told you _I’m going to see my father with my friends,_ and you knew this was one of those things you couldn’t wrap your head around. It was difficult to think about other people’s stories when you had one just as tragic.  
  
You spoke with her for longer than you needed, probably, as the tall boy distributed juice boxes with the tops ripped off (you haven’t seen a juice box in years) and some of the children took the opportunity to stretch or run around before they’d have to get back in the car, but you learned about them from watching, and from what the blue-eyed girl told you.  
  
They were going to see her father, she said, because he’d be able to find a place for them. The tall boy with the cracked glasses, the one with the scarf and the mask, the big girl with the football guards and the smaller one in a police department sweater far too large for her, the three boys playing a rowdy game of some kind around abandoend cars and the girl with fairy wings on the roof of the car, the boy holding a stuffed rabbit and the girl next to him that look like she was about to burst into tears and the two little twins in matching hooded sweatshirts and the smallest little girl with braids and eyes far older than her body. And the girl that led them, with the baseball bat and hair tied at the nape of her neck with a butterfly-shaped clip you couldn’t help but feel was significant somehow, the one the others called Lucina.  
  
Lucina, as in _Lucina, how much farther are we gonna have to go_ and _Lucina, we’re missing a hammer_ and _Lucina, Yarne is under the car again_ and _Lucina, climb up here with me, you have to see this!_ Lucina this, Lucina that, and she responded to all of it far better than you were sure most adults had before this crisis began.  
  
When they were about to leave, she said goodbye to you, but you asked why it was she wanted a picture.  
  
 _To show dad,_ she’d said, but there was more than that, and you knew it because her smile had softened and she wouldn’t look you in the eye.  
  
You understood, though. And it had been a long, long time since you remembered what _hope_ was.  
  
They left the way they came, all crowded into a single car driven by a very-underage driver out of necessity, with bicycles on the back and scavenged stickers in the windows. The twins, stuck the furthest in the back, waved at you as they drove away, and you lifted your hand to wave back.  
  
You had not told her your name. But perhaps, you thought, that was for the best.  
  
You had a feeling that was the last time you’d hear about hope for awhile.

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone wondered: Lucina is the leader, Laurent is team mom, and Gerome drives. 
> 
> (Ten bucks says no one wondered that.)


End file.
